Pages

7/20/11

Ride Home 7/20

Programming note: this might be the last post until Friday evening's commute. I've got work stuff for the next two days and other stuff tomorrow night that I might mention at the end of the post. If you need more TFTS, read Ride Home 4/5, Ride In 2/7 and Ride Home 5/19. I selected those totally at random. Hope they're good!
Mundane stretch for a while until I realized that my legs weren't quite having it today. It's normally around the time of the first slight uphill when I know whether the commute home is going to be a piece of cake or the less desirable piece of drywall, which is flaky and hard and probably carcinogenic. For me, this slight rise is right by the Russian embassy and this has led to my having nothing but antipathy for all things pan-Slavic. F-ing Scythians.
I am sure happy that this didn't happen. It would make my commute pretty horrible. Biking through a cloverleaf is not my idea of a good time. To say nothing of the fact that the entire development history of the area would have been entirely different and in this counterfactual scenario, who even knows what would happen? But I guess that's just a truism about counterfactuals.
Someone is going to get hit at the intersection of M and the Key Bridge. Way too many drivers run that red. And not just in a yellow-to-red kind of way, but in a straight-up don't see the red kind of way. This is a real, real problem. I don't know what steps can address it, but in the mean time, I urge caution and discretion from those not driving.
Anyone else notice an uptick is helmetless biking? I'm agnostic about the whole thing, but I feel like as the summer has progressed, I've seen more and more riders foregoing the helmet. Maybe because of the heat? Maybe because there are more casual riders? I don't know.
It takes three looks over the shoulder to effectively notify drivers that you intend to cross the street and that they shouldn't drive their cars into you in an attempt to turn right. Three. No less fewer than that.
There's a stretch of Fairfax when, if I hit the light correctly, I ride in the drops and shift down to my most aggressive gear. I've done this about three times. That small back cog is used most infrequently. I've got nothing to prove. Anyway, it's nice to, every once in a while, push hard on the pedals to see if I can reach rapid speeds (I can't) and Fairfax is relatively flat and open and with only a few opportunities for car and pedestrian conflict.
So, tomorrow is this:

I'm the one who isn't Alex.

Your local ABC affiliate and its advertisers might appreciate your watching. We're having people over and that'll probably prevent blogging, but I intend to ride tomorrow and look forward to the ridiculous heat. If you can't beat the heat, join 'em? Is that an aphorism? Maybe LeBron's? I don't know (what I do know is that I'm the only person in America more cut up about the NBA lockout than the NFL one. There's something wrong with me). Just be careful out there because it's hot and it'll get worse over the next couple of days, weather-wise, and prudence is better than heatstroke. Prudence is better than heatstroke is my family's Ich Dein.

I'm reading this a little late but congrats! I'm usually at school on Thurs nights but didn't have class last night and just happened to catch the last half of yesterday's show. Very cool. I went to a live taping when they were here back in '03 I think for political week...or something like that.